Airbus vs Boeing: the delivery race flipped

The near tie did not last

Airbus rose to 863 deliveries in 2019 while Boeing fell to 380. That changed a six-aircraft Boeing advantage into a 483-aircraft Airbus lead. Airbus then led in every remaining year of this 2018–2025 sample. The first year of the chart therefore matters: it shows how close the two published totals were before the reversal.

These are deliveries, a measure of aircraft moving through the manufacturers’ reported delivery process. An order can sit in a backlog for years; it does not add to this year’s bar. The chart consequently tells a story about fulfilled output, rather than a popularity contest over new orders.

A recovery with interruptions

Both totals fell in 2020: Airbus delivered 566 aircraft and Boeing 157. Their subsequent paths were uneven. By 2023 the totals had recovered to 735 and 528, but Boeing dropped again to 348 in 2024 while Airbus reached 766.

The chart alone cannot allocate those changes to individual causes. Boeing’s reports discuss the MAX grounding, the pandemic, production issues and the 2024 work stoppage; Airbus also describes supply constraints. Those documented events provide context. They do not make the annual differences an estimate of the effect of any single event, or prove that an Airbus delivery replaced a Boeing sale.

The 2025 twist: the gap more than halved

Boeing recovered from 348 deliveries in 2024 to 600 in 2025, an increase of 252 aircraft, or 72.4%. Airbus increased from 766 to 793, up 27, or 3.5%. Airbus retained the lead, but the difference narrowed from 418 to 193 aircraft: a reduction of 53.8%.

That is the useful tension in the ending. A substantial Boeing rebound and an Airbus lead can both be true. Neither manufacturer had returned to its own 2018–2019 high shown here: Boeing’s 600 remained below 806 in 2018, and Airbus’s 793 below 863 in 2019. This comparison does not forecast the 2026 winner.

All 16 observations

Manufacturer-reported units per calendar year. These are annual totals, not cumulative deliveries.

What the comparison does and does not measure

Each aircraft counts as one, regardless of its size, seating capacity or value. The figures combine different aircraft families, so they are neither a comparison of seats supplied nor revenue or profit. They say nothing about the safety of an individual flight.

We retain the companies’ published reporting boundaries. Airbus includes the A220 from July 2018. Its 2022 total of 661 includes a two-aircraft adjustment relating to A350s recorded in December 2021 whose transfer was prevented by sanctions; we retain the cited 2021 headline of 611 rather than invent a harmonised restatement. Boeing’s Commercial Airplanes totals include intercompany deliveries of commercial derivatives. They should not be read as strictly passenger-only handovers to airlines. Separate defence segments and helicopters are outside this comparison.

Every year from 2018 to 2025 has a source observation for both manufacturers. We add no missing values, estimates, or partial 2026 data. Intermediate movement and numbers in the animation are visual interpolation. The photographs identify aircraft or illustrate air travel; they are not pictures of the particular deliveries counted.

Primary sources and image rights

The underlying totals come from the manufacturers’ delivery releases and annual financial reporting, checked on 19 October 2026.

• Airbus: 2018 deliveries (800; includes 20 A220s from July)
• Airbus: 2020 financial report (2019: 863; 2020: 566)
• Airbus: 2022 deliveries, including the two-aircraft adjustment note
• Airbus: 2025 deliveries, with 2024 and 2023 comparison table
• Boeing: 2020 annual report, Commercial Airplanes deliveries table
• Boeing: 2022 results, with 2021 comparison
• Boeing: 2024 results, with 2023 comparison
• Boeing: 2025 results, 600 Commercial Airplanes deliveries

The background by Shocksingularity, Airbus A320neo photograph by 4-RAZOR 01, and Boeing 737 MAX 9 photograph by Wilfredor are existing CC0 photographs. No AI images were generated. Their exact file pages, rights, reporting notes and row-level provenance are in the source notes and provenance JSON. Names and aircraft are used for identification; no endorsement is implied.